Labour’s persistent failure to address its electorate’s salient concerns is behind the protest vote, asserts DIANE ABBOTT
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Covid and the private hospitals: the great bed rip-off
To ease the pressure on the NHS, private hospital chains were given state money to take care of non-Covid cases — the problem was, they only did half the work, explains SOLOMON HUGHES
Washington’s lawless behaviour towards countries in the region it considers its ‘back yard’ should be condemned by all law-abiding people, says LUKE DANIELS
In part I of a serialisation of his new book, JOHN McINALLY takes a look at the early days of organising government workers
Colombia’s success in controlling the drug trade should be recognised and its sovereignty respected, argues Dr GLORY SAAVEDRA
The shadow lord chancellor has recently made a name for himself as an rabid hater of immigration – but there are exceptions to every rule, says SOLOMON HUGHES
Plaid Cymru’s front-bench spokesman on health and social services MABON AP GWYNFOR, in a two-part series, analyses the Caerphilly by-election and the wider political scene in Wales ahead of the 2026 Senedd election
IN 2020 the NHS signed a £2 billion deal with the big private hospital chains to get extra help during the Covid pandemic. Matt Hancock described the deal as “great news” for the NHS and the “hospitals and staff doing everything they can to combat coronavirus.”
But it turned out to be mostly great news for private health businesses, who were paid for all their beds but only used about half for the NHS. They had all their costs met by the public sector but carried on doing paid-for private operations with the other half of their now completely subsidised capacity. This is one of the biggest private-sector Covid rip-offs.
In March 2020 the NHS signed a deal negotiated with the Independent Healthcare Providers Network, paying around £2bn for the entire capacity of England’s 200 private hospitals to help with the Covid pandemic.
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SOLOMON HUGHES details how the firm has quickly moved on to buttering-up Labour MPs after the fall of the Tories so it can continue to ‘win both ways’ collecting public and private cash by undermining the NHS
Diverting public funding to grow private-sector ‘spare capacity,’ actively undermines the funding and staff available to the NHS and results in a worse service, write JOHN PUNTIS and TONY O’SULLIVAN
